Catapult is, technically, a shadow dance company. What it really is: a theatrical art form that is an amazingly imaginative combination of dance, story-telling, and sculpture. Founded in 2009, by Adam Battlestein (choreographer, Creative Director and Master Teaching Artist for Pilobolus Dance Theatre for 19 years), Catapult catapulted to fame on Season 8 of America’s Got Talent, earning their way to the finals of the NBC-TV hit show.
Catapult is all about the human body and its ability to transform. The talented Catapult dancers work behind a screen to create seemingly impossible dancing shadow silhouettes of shapes from the world around us. You won’t believe your eyes as you watch these incredible dancers become a mountain, a full size elephant, a helicopter, a house with a window and people inside the window. You will never figure out how they do it, and you won’t know what they will make next – you will be surprised and delighted again and again. Truly a show for the entire family, you will love what appear to be effortless transformations and applaud over and over as more and more unbelievable images appear.

Catapult’s “Magic Shadows” show is packed with hundreds of shape transformations, and it is full of humor, emotion, and fully realized stories engagingly told through music and shadows…including a captivating new piece called “MouZart”, which tells the story of a musical mouse living in Mozart’s house. Plus, there are short shadow dance videos which play between the live dances – brief moments of poetry or humor which perfectly prepare the audience for their next shadow journey. You will leave this show dazed and happy, and you will never look at your own shadow the same way again!

Catapult will start the day with a program for 450 area middle school students who will have the opportunity to meet and ask questions of the performers after their special performance. We invite you to join us for a one of a kind show for the whole family at the Campanile Center for the Arts located one block west of southbound Highway 51 on Milwaukee Street in downtown Minocqua. Tickets are selling fast – be sure to get yours early.

Presentation is supported by the Arts Midwest Touring Fund, a program of Arts Midwest that is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional contributions from the Wisconsin Arts Board, the Crane Group, WI Public Service, and the Northern Arts Council.
The Campanile Center is your Northwoods home for arts and entertainment.